When Gov. Tony Evers presented his proposed 2019-21 state budget late last month, a sigh of disappointment swept through the Wisconsin conservation community.

Many of us had high hopes for new, dedicated funding for critical fish, wildlife and public lands issues in the Badger State.

Surely the budget address would include a push for measures to slow the spread of chronic wasting disease, a long-overdue increase in hunting and fishing license fees and a call for a long-term reauthorization of the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program.

But the governor's initial offering along the conservation budget stream was really a false cast.

Nothing hit the water.

There was a wind-up on key issues during the 2018 election campaign. But so far – and highly-placed officials in the Evers administration say this is by design – the specific lures and timing of presentation are still under consideration.

Conservation took a backseat in Wisconsin from 2011-18 under the pro-business administration of former Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican-dominated Assembly and Senate.

Over the last eight years, Wisconsin has followed a "monitor-only" approach to CWD. Unsurprisingly, CWD has increased in prevalence and spread in geographical distribution.

And over that same time frame, CWD-positive deer farms were allowed to continue to operate in Wisconsin, a first in state history.

A DNR wildlife technician removes lymph nodes from a white-tailed deer for CWD testing. The fatal deer disease was reported in 2013 on a Waupaca County shooting preserve, the first CWD-positive deer in the county.(Photo: Paul A. Smith / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

In recent years a funding shortfall in the DNR's Fish and Wildlife Account has caused the agency to cut services.

Most license fees have not been increased since 2005, and some since 1997. Despite strong calls from a coalition of conservation groups to increase the fees they pay for licenses, the Legislature has turned a deaf ear.

So for these and other reasons, the Feb. 28 budget address by Evers was highly anticipated by many in the conservation community.

It left us wanting.

With respect to CWD, the proposed budget is silent. The disease, which is widely considered the biggest threat to wild deer and deer hunting, isn't mentioned in the document.

This after then-candidate Evers said, in a questionnaire prepared last fall by the Wisconsin chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, that "Scott Walker’s passive approach to CWD has been an unmitigated failure" and the "DNR must make CWD testing easily available with a higher density of testing locations for harvested deer statewide."

The governor's proposed budget was also devoid of a call for license fee increases.

Larry Bonde, chairman of the Wisconsin Conservation Congress, has been working for about three years with a who's who of Wisconsin conservation groups to lobby for an increase in hunting and fishing license fees.

The groups have from 80 to high 90 percent support among their membership for a slate of modest fee increases.

Bonde expected the new governor to at least float a fee increase in the proposed budget.

"I was pretty surprised when nothing was in there," Bonde said.

And on Stewardship, Gov. Evers called for a two-year continuation as well as formation of a new committee to discuss the program's future. Many supporters were hoping the governor would push for at least a 10-year reauthorization.

"If (the Legislature and Gov. Evers) cannot agree to fund the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program, future land and water protection efforts in Wisconsin will be devastated," said Gathering Waters, Wisconsin's Alliance for Land Trusts on its website.

Wisconsin Conservation Voters, highly supportive of Gov. Evers in general, said in a statement it was "disappointed that (Evers) failed to reauthorize the Knowles Nelson Stewardship Program."

Last fall Evers, in his response to BHA, said "As Governor, I will support re-authorizing the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program to conserve lands for future generations. We need to ensure sufficient resources to provide stewardship of public lands and waters."

State government, including agencies such as the DNR, is more like an ocean liner than a kayak. It needs time and space to change direction.

So it's important to recognize the Evers administration was only in office about six weeks when it prepared the budget proposal. And of course, there are plenty of state priorities outside the conservation realm.

Further, the budget was proposed before Preston Cole, the DNR Secretary-appointee, even had a hearing before the Senate.

But that doesn't mean Gov. Evers will get a pass if he fails to act on critical issues.

When asked this week about the conservation items missing from the budget, the governor's staff referred questions to the DNR.

Scott Loomans, the DNR's administrator of the division of fish, wildlife and parks, responded. With regard to CWD, Loomans said the department is reviewing "predictive" work from other states to help guide future moves in Wisconsin.

Two items the agency is now considering: a new CWD sample processing center with a dedicated, full-time employee, and providing more deer carcass dumpsters and CWD sampling kiosks across the state.

The CWD facility would speed the testing process and get results to hunters sooner, Loomans said. Having more dumpsters would help keep carcasses in the locality the animal was harvested and reduce the chance of spreading CWD prions.

A deer carcass dumpster (left) and a CWD sampling kiosk have been established on the Duren Family Farm near Cazenovia, Wisconsin. The Duren Family Farm and Hunt to Eat adopted the dumpster and kiosk under a new program organized by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.(Photo: Paul A. Smith)

Loomans said although the issue wasn't in the state budget, the department is working on ways to provide funding to expand the dumpster and kiosk programs, perhaps even this year.

On license fees, Loomans said the DNR received spikes in funding in 2016 and 2018 from the Pittman-Robertson federal excise tax, helping to patch a funding shortfall.

For now, the agency is doing its best – including by leaving some positions vacant – to get by without a license fee increase.

And on Knowles-Nelson, Loomans said the decision was made to convene a diverse group to review and consider the status of the program.

"I don't know what they will recommend, but if a bipartisan committee endorses reauthorization of Stewardship, we will have a much stronger chance to get it approved by the Legislature," Loomans said.

On at least these three issues in the early days of his administration, Gov. Evers has his line over the water.

He and his DNR appointees are being cautious.

For now, we have no option but to wait to see where his cast lands and what it catches. Not years, but at least months.

If history looks back at this chapter and tells a story of a DNR that made deliberate, publicly-supported and science-based decisions that proved effective, the wait will have been worth it.

But if it turns out these conservation issues were more campaign strategy than policy priority, the new governor will wear out his welcome long before his term expires.